“The model that I had in my head was ‘Loose Lips Sink Ships,’: ” Mr. Kay said. “I wasn’t born [yet] during World War II, but I sure knew the phrase and so did everybody else.”

“In this case,” he added, “I thought it was ironic because we want just the opposite. We want people to talk. I wanted to come up with something that would carry like that. That would be infectious.”

In 2002, the transportation agency saw a need for a security-awareness campaign to encourage customers to report suspicious activity or unattended packages, and they turned to Mr. Kay, who still had the phrase on his index card. By January 2003, the slogan was on posters and placards in subway cars, buses and trains.

It has since become a global phenomenon – the homeland security equivalent of the “Just Do It” Nike advertisement – and has appeared in public transportation systems in Oregon, Texas, Florida, Australia and Canada, among others. Locally, the phrase captured, with six simple words and one comma, the security consciousness and dread of the times, the “I ? NY” of post-9/11 New York City.

The transportation authority received a trademark on the slogan from the United States Patent and Trademark Office, though unauthorized uses appear to outnumber authorized ones.

That’ll happen with plain old ways to say things in English—once called “phrases” or “sentences,” not “trademarks.”

Did you know, by the way, that you can “receive a trademark” from the PTO? : I didn’t. : I’ve been a trademark lawyer all these years and I’d thought they only registered trademarks, which are otherwise earned by use that rises to the level of establishing a secondary meaning! : Silly me.

So the end of that distinction, manifested of course by acceptance: of using the word “trademark” as a verb, is now official, for it is no longer recognized among reporters or their diligent, triple-checking editorial phalanxes at the Newspaper of Record. : This says it all about what “trademarking” has become, unfortunately; as to “journalism,” well,: what do I know?